


Cruel Wind Blows

by ozsaur



Category: Die Gänsemagd | The Goose Girl
Genre: Fairy Tale Retellings, False Identity, Gen, Horses, Impersonation, Magic, POV Female Character, Witchcraft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:35:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26975974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ozsaur/pseuds/ozsaur
Summary: The Goose Girl is not what she seems.
Kudos: 5
Collections: New Year's Resolutions 2020





	Cruel Wind Blows

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gehayi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gehayi/gifts).



> I would like to thank Trillingstar for her beta. She was very busy, but still made time to help me out. Thanks! Any remaining mistakes are all mine.

I turned away, my fists clenched to keep them from snatching her off the horse, and tossing her into the river. One day into this journey and she’s already treating me like a servant. The nerve that the princess would treat me like that when I’m her mother’s last and best apprentice.

Calling her princess had started as a fond joke, though it gave her mother ideas. My mistress seduced a doddering old king into marriage, and had herself crowned as his queen, but that still doesn’t make her daughter a princess. Come to think of it, she is about as useless as a princess, and only good for breeding with handsome princes who are equally useless.

In the fullness of her years, and at the peak of wisdom and knowledge, she could have achieved anything. My mistress spent the greatness of her powers to bear this girl, though to what purpose, she never told me. What I do know is that she didn’t do it out of any sentimental purpose to nurture a child to adulthood.

I am only on this journey to see to the girl’s well-being until I can hand her over to the prince. 

Princess held out her golden cup and asked me to fetch her a drink of water, for her throat was parched. 

I told her to get it herself, and she started to weep, fat tears rolling out of those big, cow eyes. A guard hurried to help her off poor Falada, and followed her to the river. I did too. I watched as she bent over the water, and dipped her cup in. The guard watched too, so in love with her he didn’t even notice me there. 

Then I smiled. One day into this journey, and I had already changed plans.

* * *

She asked me to fetch water for her again, as I knew she would. There’s a reason the guards have always loved her: she’s quite beautiful, and quite stupid. 

Again, I followed her to the river. This time when she leaned over the water to fill her cup, I waved my fingers, and a subtle wind answered. It was harmless, just a cooling breeze, so the aura surrounding the princess didn’t have time to react until it was too late.

The breeze tugged the handkerchief with the three drops of blood from her mother out of the bodice of her gown, and dropped it into the river. As the handkerchief floated away, so did her protection.

I can do what I want now, and what I want is to ride Falada. She can ride the other horse.

* * *

The journey is turning out to be very pleasant. Poor, dear princess weeps all the time. The guards worship me now that I’m wearing her luxurious garments, and made myself alluring. I’d been so caught up in my studies that I’d forgotten how easy it is to sway others. 

One moment they were falling at the feet of the princess, the next the sun and moon rose over me. How amusing!

* * *

Nothing turns out as I hope.

Falada barely remembers me. He only speaks when the princess is near, and then he only says, “If your mother only knew, her heart would break in two.”

I remember when my mistress called him forth from the outer realms. He was magnificent then, gleaming white like moonbeams on the ocean waves. I learned so much from him during the many hours he spoke to my mistress, and to me. Much of it I wrote down in my book.

Back then he could fly. That was the most unforgettable lesson. The memories of Falada leaping into the air, flying so high that my tears turned to frost on my cheeks will never fade.

I must deal with Falada. I am not unkind.

* * *

The prince is a handsome young man, well-mannered, and eager to please. He seems quite struck by my appearance, yet that doesn’t stop him from noticing the princess. Even with her golden hair wrapped in a scarf, and wearing plain clothes, her beauty is obvious.

I admit, I snapped at him when he asked me who she was. I told him she was a servant girl, and I bade him give her a position that didn’t require much skill or intelligence. I suggested the care of animals, and he said, “We are in need of a goose girl. Conrad has been begging for an assistant for over a year now.”

He knows the name of the person who cares for his geese? He may not be the spoiled, arrogant boy his title implies. Being his princess may be more interesting than I thought.

* * *

It appears that no one in this kingdom knows how to follow orders. I left strict instructions with the stable master to behead Falada, and burn the remains. That was the essential part, and I emphasized it several times.

So what did the idiot do? Burned the body, but nailed Falada’s head above the doorway where the princess passes through with her geese every morning and evening. This is troubling, because the princess has never shown this kind of cruelty before. She knows Falada’s spirit can’t return to the outer realms until his body is completely destroyed.

Now his head hangs there mumbling the same words over and over, “If your mother only knew, her heart would break in two.”

Indeed it would.

* * *

Sadly, the prince is not at all entertaining. He talks incessantly about his dogs, and horses. He wants to go to a hunting lodge for our honeymoon where he plans to hunt foxes while I sit alone staring at the taxidermy on the walls. Yes, that’s what every girl dreams of.

He tries his best to please me, and acted delighted with the idea of a picnic in the meadow not far from where the princess – no, goose girl -- works all day.

I’ve been to many picnics, but never one with so many servants setting out tables and chairs, replete with candlesticks, tablecloths, and gold cutlery. Platters piled high with meats, trays artfully mounded with breads and roasted vegetables, and bowls filled with luxurious fruits from foreign lands loaded down the tables. 

It would have been nice to sit on the lush grass, and bathe in the sun. But the young courtiers of the court complained about the dewdrops on their shoes, and the wind mussing their hair.

Then I felt it. The faintest whisper of magic warming my skin. A soft voice on the wind. 

“Blow wind, blow! Take Conrad’s hat away. Don’t let him come back until my hair is combed today!”

I saw a peasant boy running along the edge of the meadow chasing after a hat blown by the wind. No matter how fast he ran, the hat stayed just out of his reach. 

I made sure to go unnoticed as I slipped away from the picnic, and followed the path from where the boy had come. On the other side of a low hill, I found her sitting by a pond. Through the trees, I watched her as she combed out her hair, radiating perfect innocence.

I knew where she learned the charm, but where did the power come from? The protective handkerchief was gone, and Falada had no spark left in what remained of him. There must have been something else; had her mother given her another trinket? Try as I might, I couldn’t sense anything.

So how had she called the wind?

* * *

That night, I went to the little cottage that she shares with three other servants. It was easy enough to make sure they all slept soundly.

I examined the princess more thoroughly than I ever have before. Perhaps I had been too dismissive. Perhaps I didn’t look deep enough.

I found nothing new, nothing different. She was as empty as she’d ever been. There was no power singing through her bones, nor darkness in her heart. Most telling, I found no rage.

A witch is made of rage. Witchcraft comes from the fire within. A witch is never without scars, she has been tried, and survived.

The princess is not a witch. What is she?

On my way back to the castle, I stopped at the gate. I could hear the buzz of flies before I reached it. When I saw Falada’s head my stomach heaved, and I swallowed the bile in my throat. I could barely see his face through the flies. Why would the princess do such a thing? 

I couldn’t stand it. Beautiful Falada didn’t deserve this; no one did. 

I burned the gate to the ground.

* * *

The king told me there would be a feast tomorrow to introduce me to his kingdom. In the few days that I’d been here, he had always smiled at me, and greeted me as daughter. Today, he barely looked at me.

I don’t need magic to know that something has gone wrong. Whatever it is, I’ll find a way to salvage what I can. 

I could flee, but that has never been in my nature, no matter what it has cost me. 

All I can do is wait and see.

* * *

So I have been tricked. The king asked what I would do to a woman who impersonated someone else in order to gain their wealth. I answered with a torture I’d read in a book once, being flippant. 

What a fool I was not to be suspicious of such a question. What a fool he was to think it was to gain their wealth. I have no need for their wealth, their kingdom, or their luxuries. 

Damned by my own curiosity.

* * *

Tonight, the prince and princess marry. I can hear the celebration down here in this dark place. Tomorrow, a group of soldiers will take me to the bottom of a tall cliff, and seal me in a barrel with nails hammered into it. Then they will roll me up the path to the top where they will fling that barrel, with me in it, over the edge to the sea below. They will smile, congratulate each other, and think me dead. 

I will survive. It will be another trial set on my path like so many others, but unlike those hardships, I called this one on myself.

I will return. Scarred and unrecognizable, I will see the princess again. Not for revenge, but to learn what my mistress has wrought. She told me nothing at the genesis of her daughter, but I understand now that there was a reason she created that hollow poppet. 

I want to know why. A few years from now, I will set foot in this country again - perhaps when the princess has her firstborn child.

The End


End file.
